


you walked in, and i couldn't look away

by nezueye



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Boys In Love, First Kiss, Gay Keith (Voltron), Happy Ending, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Siblings, Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Misunderstandings, One Shot, POV Lance (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), a lot of texting bc i love it, dumbasses in love, lance is so clumsy in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 08:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25347430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezueye/pseuds/nezueye
Summary: Lance has a staring problem. Keith hates it and confronts him about it. Lance falls for him, literally, and then... they become sort-of friends.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 268
Collections: Just some pretty nice fics





	you walked in, and i couldn't look away

Lance is sweating and tired and oozing body odor when his crush talks to him for the first time.

You see, Lance has always had bad luck.

Three days before his tenth birthday Lance, feeling like a grown up because he was turning double digits, tried to save a kitten (which turned out to be a stuffed owl toy his sister had thrown up into the tree) from a tree in front of his house all by himself, slipped on a branch, and broke his arm. He cried all day and night but at least his big brother Luis drew a cool spaceship on his cast that he got to show off to all his friends at his birthday party a few days later. When he was twelve, he finally figured out what he wanted to be when he grew up: a veterinarian. A couple days later, he found a birds nest on the ground in his front yard that had fallen from the same tree (he had started to think the tree was cursed). He had created a makeshift nest for the eggs using an empty shoe box and old t-shirts. He tried talking to the eggs too; he told them _don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you now._ It took three days, and help from his twin sister Rachel, for him to learn that the baby birds inside the eggs had died. He probably killed them. He cried for days and told him Mom he didn’t want to be a veterinarian anymore. When he was fifteen, it seemed like his life was finally turning around. He was finally going to get a chance to kiss the prettiest girl at school, the girl he had a crush on for _weeks_. The bliss of the kiss lasted approximately four seconds before she yelped and pulled back with wide eyes, a hand coming up to cover her mouth. He hadn’t know what he did wrong until she moved her hand to touch her bleeding lip. He had cut her with his braces. He was so dizzy with embarrassment he didn’t register her leaving or anything else from that day. He didn’t cry, but he sure as hell wanted to. She’d showed up to school the next day with a swollen and bruised lip. It’s been two years and she still hasn’t looked his way.

The point is, important moments in Lance’s life always have a way of turning to shit.

Exhibit 832: This moment right here.

Track practice ended over an hour ago but Lance has a habit of staying after hours. If he wants to keep his mile under four minutes then staying an hour or so after is the least he can do. He doesn’t mind it though; running has always been one of his true loves.

Speaking of true loves… Lance couldn’t pick a worse time to finally exchange words with Keith Kogane. You see, Keith’s never spoken to him before. They’ve been going to the same school for four years, have been in some of the same classes and lunch periods, share a couple of friends (well, _one_ friend) but they’ve never spoken to each other. _Why now?_ He’s daydreamed plenty about Keith walking up to him and kissing his face (not that he thinks that would ever happen) but why today of all days? Why is Keith stalking towards him with an angry look on his face when Lance is dirty and smells like a locker room and definitely _not_ ready for whatever their first ever conversation entails?

Wait. Why is Keith _angry_? He’s never even acknowledged Lance’s existence before. What could Lance have possible done to h—

“Stop staring at me,” Keith demands as soon as he’s in front of Lance.

“Shutup,” Lance counters before he has time to think. “I’m not- I don’t stare at you.” He most definitely _does_.

It’s clearly not what Keith expects because he looks shocked for a moment before his frown returns.

Keith continues, “ _What_? No, you know what? I won’t shutup. I’m tired of you always staring at me. Every time we’re in the same room or. Or if I just so happen to walk by during your stupid track practice, you always seem to know when I’m around and you just… _stare._ I’m tired of it. So, stop.”

Lance’s heart is close to beating out of his chest but he remains calm and collected because he’s good at pretending. He takes a deep breath, smiles warmly at Keith, and holds out a hand. “First of all, hey, I’m Lance. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Keith doesn’t look amused. He looks down at Lance’s outstretched hand and doesn’t move to shake it.

“Okaaay, clearly we started off on the wrong foot. Look, I’m sorry for…staring at you,” Lance rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Sometimes, uh, a lot of times actually I get distracted and space out. I guess I’ve just been spacing out in your direction?” Lance tries to sound like he has no idea what Keith is talking about. He thinks he might be a damn good liar because Keith’s face relaxes a little.

Keith still says nothing.

“Look, man,” Lance sighs. “I’m sorry if my… staring has made you uncomfortable. I will try to pay more attention in the future, okay? I won’t stare at you anymore, Scout’s honor.” He’s never even been a Scout. He does a little motion across his heart and then holds up his hand like he’s trying to high-five Keith. That’s something Scouts do, right?

Keith narrows his eyes at Lance for a second before his expression relaxes a little more. Now that he’s not frowning and doing his bad-boy schtick, he looks uncomfortable and awkward. “Uh, okay. Thanks. I may have overreacted. Just don’t… I don’t like when people stare at me. But I appreciate you apologizing and uh….” He blows out a frustrated breath and drag a hand through his hair. “ _What am I even doing here?”_ he whispers furiously to himself.

Lance is wondering the same thing. “Um?”

Keith looks up from where he’s been arguing with the ground and _there goes that frown again._ Should Lance find that cute? “What.”

“I don’t know but don’t you find this entire thing kinda funny? Honestly, it feels like a good start to a great friendship.” Lance tries to laugh but it comes out weak.

Keith just stares at him with a calculating expression. It looks like he’s battling against himself but in the end he just shakes his head and says, “Um. I have to go. Bye.”

Lance stares at Keith’s retreating body and wonders how soft his hair must feel.

+++

After Lance has gone home, showered, had dinner with his family and brushed off Rachel’s questioning glances, he lies in bed and stares up at his bedroom ceiling.

So, here’s the thing.

Lance has been in love with Keith since freshman year.

See, Keith had been the new kid. Every year their school accepted a few new kids, from kindergarten all the way to high school but Keith…. Keith was different. Keith was _the_ new kid.

It was mostly likely due to the fact that he was Takashi Shirogane’s little brother. Shiro was still the most popular guy in Garrison school history even though he had graduated a few years prior. The guy was basically perfect, even people who have never met him knew about him. The only reason Lance was “friends” with Shiro was because he’d been part of Shiro’s senior project when he was in seventh grade. He still occasionally texted him to ask about Matt when he wasn’t answering his sister’s texts or when Lance needed help with his own senior project. Shiro was a cool dude.

Anyway, the rumors had started out small. Shiro told Matt that his younger brother would be starting at the Garrison that year after moving in with their mom. Matt told Pidge and Pidge told Hunk and Hunk told Lance and some people overheard and–

Rumors spread quicker than the flu in high school. As soon as the students found out that Shiro’s brother would be attending as an incoming freshman, things went downhill. Apparently someone overheard that Pidge had met Keith once and called him a “loner” and a “misanthrope.” (Pidge would later argue that all she said was that he seemed quiet but that high-schoolers were bored and just looking for trouble). After that the rumors got more specific.

According to the gossip, Keith had supposedly spent a couple of years in juvie for stealing cars and trying to sell them. He’d returned to his Dad’s house and then had been kicked out after his Dad found out that he’d been stealing money from his wallet to buy pocket knives. He’d also had ties to gangs and blackmailed the Garrison principle into accepting him as a student. Lance never once believed any of these rumors, he knew better. When he was in elementary school, he’d accidentally sat on his snickers bar and a rumor had spread that the chocolate all over his butt was poop. They’d made fun of him for _years_ and it wasn’t even true. So he knew whatever was being said about this Keith kid were most likely false. People said Shiro was the golden child and Keith was the devil’s spawn. There were whispers about Keith all throughout the hallways even before he set foot in them.

On the other hand, Keith didn’t really help his case when he came to school on the first day dressed in all black: black jeans and a black shirt and black fingerless gloves and black hair that covered part of his face. He looked just like everyone had imagined him. Lance knew how cruel teenagers could be and the scar on Keith’s face would most likely bring him unwanted attention and whispers from his classmates.

Lance didn’t see what the big deal was. He thought the new kid was kind of cute. Of course, maybe the reason Lance didn’t mind Keith _at all_ was because he was really into the bad-boy type. Like, embarrassingly into it. Keith would glare at someone and Lance would swoon.

When he saw how Keith would take _no_ shit from anyone? Lance was looking. When Keith punched James Griffin in the face for talking shit about his Dad? Lance was looking. When Keith didn’t even give the bullies a chance to fuck with him because his death glares were so intense? Yeah, Lance was _looking_ and he was _in love._ Most definitely.

Of course, he didn’t _know_ it was love when he was fourteen but now that he’s seventeen, he likes to think he knows a little more about romance and relationships than he did a few years ago. Thanks to all the failed relationships he’s had, advice from his older siblings, the internet, and more than enough times crying in his Mother’s arms about someone else telling him _I don’t think it’s gonna work out, sorry._

So, yes. He _knows_ things now and what he knows is that he’s in love with Keith. He has to be; there’s no way he can feel this much for someone for so long and it not be love. He’s had many crushes before. He’s pined after people and did the whole dating thing many times but those things never seem to last. His feelings for Keith? Those have lasted. They have never once dimmed. In fact, they seem to burn brighter with every passing day. Since the start of senior year, Lance feels like he’s been seeing Keith around more than ever before. What if this is the universe’s way of bringing them together, finally? Why does love have to be so damn _complicated_?

He inhales and exhales deeply a few times and pulls out his phone.

**Lance [4:32pm]**

_hi……_

**Hunk [4:40pm]**

_Hi bud_

_What’s wrong?_

**Lance [4:40pm]**

_how do u know something’s wrong….._

_maybe i just wanna say hi to my best friend_

**Hunk [4:43pm]**

_There were no exclamation points_

_Or this thing you do_

_< 3_

_That_

**Lance [4:44pm]**

_it’s a heart <3 cus i love u <3_

**Hunk [4:45pm]**

_Aww! I love you too. Now, what’s wrong?_

**Lance [4:48pm]**

_nothing much just….having a k*ith crisis again_

_he kinda……talked me to today. or yelled at me_

**Hunk [4:49pm]**

_NO WAY. KEITH KOGANE??_

_Wait. He yelled at you? Why???_

**Lance [4:49pm]**

_YES KEITH. and cus apparently i “stare” at him too much_

**Hunk [4:51pm]**

_Oof. Uhh would you be mad if I said you kinda do? I’m surprised he said something to you though. I didn’t think he even knew you existed_

**Lance [4:51pm]**

_UM OK WOW-_

**Hunk [4:51pm]**

_I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT_

_I just didn’t know he paid attention to ANYONE, not just you. Sorry :-(_

**Lance [4:53pm]**

_it’s fine i was just joking lmao ur right anyway_

_but yea he put me in my place_

**Hunk [4:56pm]**

_What exactly did he say?_

**Lance [4:57pm]**

_can i just call u_

Lance doesn’t give Hunk a chance to reply before he’s dialing his number. It takes Hunk three rings before he picks up.

“So,” Lance sighs, “I was doing my laps and I get this weird feeling like someone is watching me, right? But I don’t see anyone and I don’t believe in ghosts so I’m like whatever, it was probably just the wind. I finish my laps, everything is fine and dandy and I’m stretching out my muscles because _last time_ I forgot to do it, I got hurt, and Coach said I can’t forget things like that because one day I’m gonna _really_ hurt myself and then where will I be, huh? What kind of runner would I–“

“ _Lance,_ ” Hunk interrupts, “You’re getting off topic, dude.”

“Right, right. Sorry. Where was I?”

“You just finished your laps and…”

“Oh yeah! So, I was finishing my laps and when I turn around, guess who I see walking towards me?”

“Keith Kogane?” Hunk guesses.

“ _Keith Kogane,”_ Lance confirms. “He was like… stalking towards me like I was some kind of prey. I would have found it hot if I wasn’t panicking, probably. So I’m _what the hell did you do now?_ Um, to myself, not to Keith. Since I’m always in the middle of something, somehow.”

“Yeah,” Hunk laughs. “Somehow. But what did he say?”

“He basically told me to stop staring at him and that he finds it creepy. I didn’t know he noticed when I would stare. I thought I was being careful! Hmm,” Lance hums and rubs at his chin, “Now that I think about it, I’m kind of embarrassed. _Holy shit._ I’m so embarrassing.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I do embarrassing stuff all the time! And besides, this is like kind of low on your embarrassing scale, right? No offense.”

“None taken. You’re right. It doesn’t have to be a big deal if I don’t let it be. This is like… a four outta ten. I can do more embarrassing shit.”

“Uh, haha, don’t though. Anyway, I know how you feel about Keith but try to tone down the staring, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lance mumbles, “I know. I wish he was ugly.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know. I’m glad he’s so pretty. Speaking of pretty, Allura was asking about the paragraphs for yearbook. Did you write yours already?”

“Ha, kinda? I have a few sentences done. I still don’t know what pictures I want to add, though.”

“Well _obviously_ you gotta put me in there. I’ll send you some of my best selfies,” Lance tells him.

“Of course,” Hunk agrees. “Can never leave you out.”

“Read me your sentences?”

“Sure.”

They spend the rest of the night ignoring their English homework and instead talk about what inappropriate things they can put in the yearbook and get away with.

+++

After Keith basically forbids Lance from staring at him, Lance does his best to honor his wishes.

It works. Well, it works for ten minutes before Lance cracks.

Keith is walking into the cafeteria with his headphones in, some sort of black clips pulling his hair back. He looks gorgeous as always.

Lance groans and buries his head in his arms.

“What’s up bud?” Hunk asks. He rubs the top of Lance’s hair back in forth in a soothing gesture.

Lance shoots up immediately. “Hunk! My hair! I spent like half an hour on it this morning and you’re ruining it!”

Hunk smiles sheepishly and holds his hands up. “Sorry. What’s got you so down, though?”

“Keith,” he grumbles.

“Ah,” Hunk confirms. He looks up towards the front of the cafeteria and nods when his eyes find Keith. “Keith. The guy you’ve been crushing on for forever who yelled at you yesterday. You still like him after that?”

“Yeah. I actually think I like him more. He was so assertive, you should’ve seen it. He wasn’t taking any shit. It was hot.”

“Of course you like him _more,_ ” Hunk sighs. “Why am I even surprised?” He looks up at the ceiling like he’s searching for answers in the sky. Lance pokes his belly. Hunk bends over into himself, a giggle escaping his lips. Lance smiles and pokes his cheek next. Then he looks back to where Keith is and groans again.

“Just look at him.” Lance props his chin in his hand and stares - _looks, because he’s not being creepy again-_ at Keith. He’s standing in the lunch line. It looks like he’s contemplating the mashed potatoes and is taking too long because the people behind him look annoyed.

“He looks like he always does,” Hunk says. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

“ _Exactly,_ Hunk. He’s beautiful and cute and so damn pretty and _way_ too good for me. I’m just…me. Bad combo. I’m going to die. I’m pretty sure I’m having a heart attack as I speak.” His head makes a _thunk_ sound when it hits the table.

“You’re not having a heart attack and you’re not dying, Lance. Look, he’s coming over here.”

Lance lifts his head so fast he feels the muscles in his neck burn. His rubs the back of his neck as he mumbles a curse. Keith is definitely _not_ coming towards them.

“I can’t believe you would play with my heart like that,” Lance pouts.

Hunk snickers. “Sorry, I had to. But listen, Lance, you shouldn’t put Keith on such a high pedestal. The way you talk about him like he’s some space fighting knight hero-person trying to stop the bad guys from taking over the world in a badass intergalactic war where he teams up with his five best friends and together they—”

“Hunk. Buddy, _Breathe._ ”

Hunk plants his hands on the table and takes a deep breath. Lance breathes along with him and together they calm down.

“Thanks,” Hunk says shyly. “Um, what was I saying?”

“Something about Keith killing the bad guys in space…?”

“Oh! Right. Lance, Keith is a normal person, just like you and just like me. I’m not saying he’s _just some guy_ because you clearly like him for a reason and I respect your decisions in crushes, no matter how emo.”

Lance squints at Hunk but before he can defend himself _and_ Keith, Hunk barrels on. “You’re not _unworthy_ of him, I promise. If we’re being honest, I think you’re the coolest and funniest and kindest guy I’ve ever known and I know for sure anyone would be lucky to have you.” He gives Lance one of his warm sunshine smiles and Lance melts.

“Huuuuunk,” Lance whines and hugs Hunk’s arm, burying himself in it. “You can’t say things like that in public because I _will_ cry and I don’t want any of these people to see me vulnerable. They don’t deserve it.” He sniffs and rubs his fake tears on Hunk’s shirt.

“Sorry, dude. I gotta tell you how special you are as much as possible, you know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Lance feels his heart swell ten times its size. “I get what you mean, though. I do tend to idolize people… I know I gotta stop but it’s so much easier to do that than to actually talk to people,” Lance sighs.

“I get it,” Hunk comforts.

“Why can’t I just live in my own head and pretend like everything is okay?”

“Uh, as much as I wanna dive into that topic, I don’t think this is a conversation we should be having in the cafeteria of our very nosey high school, so let’s rain check, yeah?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Lance grumbles and rubs his face again Hunk’s arm again. He looks around the cafeteria and of course finds himself seeking out one specific pair of eyes.

The pair of eyes that are currently looking back at him. His eyes go wide and he immediately flushes and looks away but Lance can’t stay away for long so he turns back to catch a glance of Keith. He’s not looking at Lance anymore and is instead glaring at his lunch.

He can’t possibly be mad at _Lance_ , right? Keith was the one who was staring first this time. Now the question remains: _why?_

+++

Lance sees Keith the next morning while walking out of Biology class with Hunk.

He had spent the first half of class explaining everything that happened with Keith the day before _again_. Hunk, of course, made it clear to Lance that he shouldn’t “do too much.” Whatever that means. He’s just grateful Hunk will listen to him tell the same story about his crush over and over again. It’s not like Hunk is any better. He still panics every time _his_ crush, Shay, talks to him and always recounts their interactions tenfold. He’s even worse than Lance.

Lance will absolutely do too much. Keith’s impossible to ignore.

Speaking of Keith, here he is.

“Hi, Keith!” Lance yells.

Keith turns his head so sharply that Lance swears he can hear the crack of his bones. He glares at Lance – what is with the glares? Sheesh – and Lance winces. Maybe he _should_ tone it down. Now everyone’s looking at them.

Lance sheepishly waves as Keith keeps glaring and then rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment. Keith softens for a millisecond before he turns on his heels and walks away.

“Buddy—”

“ _Don’t_ say it. I know.” Lance mumbles. “I’m doing too much, you already told me.”

Hunk frowns. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say, maybe don’t yell at him? You should talk to him alone. He clearly doesn’t like attention so maybe if it’s just you…”

Lance looks at him and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” Hunk asks defensively.

“If it’s just me, what? You think he’ll forget about me embarrassing him in front of everyone and suddenly want to become my friend? I wish it was that easy. That guy’s a tough nut to crack.”

Hunk snorts and shakes his head. He starts walking towards their next class and Lance follows him, looping his arm through Hunk’s.

“Well, not right away. But I think it’s worth a shot. He seems like a cool guy once you peel back a few layers.”

“Yeah, a few dozen layers,” Lance grumbles.

“He’s Shiro’s little brother. I mean, how bad can Keith actually be if he grew up with someone as cool as Shiro.”

“Yeah,” Lance grins. “Shiro is cool as fuck. You’re right. I’m gonna get close to Keith and make him fall in love with me. Thanks Hunk, you’re the best.”

He plants a kiss to Hunk’s cheek and then pats his chest.

“Definitely not what I meant but okay,” Hunk replies but Lance is not listening.

+++

Lance begins saying Hi to Keith whenever he sees him. He doesn’t yell it anymore, just greets him in passing in the most earnest way he can. Inside voice, small smiles, a wave, no creepy staring.

Even though Keith never says Hi back, he does stop glaring at Lance after the first few times so Lance counts it as a win.

Sometimes he thinks he should stop and that he’s probably annoying Keith but then he thinks about the way Keith had marched up to him on the field and that if Keith really wanted Lance to stop saying Hi to him, he’d tell him straight to his face.

So, Lance continues to say Hi and hopes he’s melting that first solid layer of ice that Keith has around his heart. It might be a trick of the light but he swears he sees Keith smile at him once.

+++

Lance runs into Keith two days later. Literally.

Allura had asked Lance for a favor and Lance can never say no to her, so here he is. He’s wearing his fanny pack and putting up random flyers on every bulletin board he can find when he sees Keith doing the same thing down the hall. He’s wearing clips in his hair again. Red ones. Lance takes a deep breath and tries not to scream. It’s so unfair for Keith to walk around looking like that.

Lance whistles and pretends not to see Keith as he walks towards him. Keith’s not paying attention to him, of course. His back is turned to him so Lance turns his head the other way and accidentally bumps into him.

He hears a few things. First, he hears a gasp. Then he hears the stapler Keith had been using to pin up the flyers go off followed by a yelp from Keith. Keith drops the stapler and the extra flyers he was holding. Lance bends down and picks up the fallen things when Keith makes a noise of pain.

“Fuuuck,” Keith hisses. “Ow. Shit.”

Lance’s eyes widen. That doesn’t sound good at all.

“Uh, you okay man?” he asks.

Keith turns to glare at him. When he sees that it’s Lance who spoke, he glares harder. Lance looks down and sees Keith’s holding his left hand and there’s a staple… in his finger? Did Lance do that? He places both staplers in the fanny pack and gathers all the flyers in one hand and reaches out for Keith with the other.

“Oh my god, Keith. I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t mean— We should go to the nurse. Come on,” Lance says as he grabs Keith’s uninjured hand and leads the way to the nurse’s office.

“Lance, no—” Keith protests but Lance cuts him off. Keith said his _name._ He’s got to tell Hunk.

“Keith, shut up. You have a staple thingy in your _finger_. Do you want to lose your finger? They will amputate it if you don’t get help immediately. Do you want that to happen?!” Lance looks back at Keith and raises his eyebrows in question when Keith just stares at him “That’s what I thought,” he confirms. He turns back around and continues on his journey.

It only takes a few seconds of silence for Lance to remember he’s _holding Keith’s hand._ He goes hot all over and feels himself start to sweat. God, Keith is going to feel his hand sweat and then never talk to him again. Well, it’s not like Keith talks to him normally but now the chances of Keith talking to him again are slim to none because all he’s going to remember is how sweaty and disgusting Lance’s hand is and—

Keith suddenly pulls him to a stop and Lance turns around to ask why in the hell they’re stopping when they haven’t made it to the nurse’s office when he realizes they’re already here. He got lost in his thoughts _again._

“We’re here, you can… I can go in alone.” Keith awkwardly removes his hand from Lance’s and wipes it on his jeans. He _knew_ his hands were sweaty.

“No, it’s okay, I can stay,” Lance insists. “Just in case you faint or something.”

“I’m not gonna—” Keith huffs. “Fine, whatever.”

Lance grins as Keith rolls his eyes and then follows him inside the room. The nurse doesn’t look surprised at all by Keith holding up his stapled finger. Apparently it happens a lot in high school.

Lance makes sure to stay by Keith’s side the entire nineteen seconds it takes for the nurse to take out the staple and put on a pink Hello Kitty band-aid over the microscopic cut. It wasn’t as deep as Lance thought which is good because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was the reason Keith lost his finger.

“All done,” the nurse says. “You can go on back to class now.”

“Thanks,” Keith mumbles and rubs his thumb softly against the band-aid. She shoos them out as another kid walks in holding his stomach like he’s going to be sick all over them.

“Let’s go,” Lance grimaces and grabs Keith’s hand.

Once they’re out in the hallway again, Keith pulls his hand from Lance’s grip. Keith clears his throat and looks arounds as classroom doors open and students begin to filter out.

“Is your finger feeling okay?” Lance asks moving slightly closer to Keith as he’s pushed by the crowd. He’s only a few inches taller than Keith but this close, he feels taller than he really is. He has to tilt his head down a little more to look at Keith. It gives him a little thrill when Keith looks up at him. _God,_ those eyelashes.

“Yeah, I guess. Might still have to get it amputated.”

Lance is two seconds from getting on his knees and apologizing when he sees the corner of Keith’s mouth twitch in an aborted smile. “You’re fucking with me. _You ass!_ You scared me!”

Keith snorts and shakes his head. “Can I get the flyers back? I didn’t get to finish them.”

Did he just make Keith _laugh?_ And he didn’t have to do anything but be himself. Wow, what a concept.

“Oh, it’s cool dude. I can finish them on my own. I mean, it _is_ my fault we couldn’t finish. Sorry about that, uh… again.”

“It’s fine,” Keith dismisses. “Not like you did it on purpose.”

Well…. shit. Lance is a terrible person, isn’t he?

“Yeah,” he clears his throat, “totally an accident. Happy accident, though, right? Cause you’re talking to me.”

Keith looks away for a moment. His thumb rubs again the Hello Kitty band-aid again. “I should go to class…”

“Right. Me too. Uh, I’ll see you later?”

“Hmm,” Keith nods and walks away.

Lance has _got_ to tell Hunk about this.

+++

Lance pushes himself to finish his last lap even when he can’t feel his legs anymore. As soon as he crosses that finish line he collapses onto the grass in the middle of the tracks. He breathes in deep and reminds himself of this feeling right here, feeling _free_ , is why he does this. It’s why he pushes himself so much. One day he’ll be able to fly.

His arms burn as he pushes himself up and then stands. He stretches until he feels like a person again.

His skin is cool and the sun envelopes him in its arms, covering him up in warmth. He uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead and then looks towards the bleachers. He catches sight of something, no, some _one._

It’s Keith. Was he just watching—? No, probably not.

Against his better judgment, Lance jogs up to where Keith is sitting in the bleachers. There aren’t many people around, considering most people like to stay indoors on the hottest days. There are a couple of students throwing around a football, a few girls laughing together a dozen seats away from Keith, a handful of people slowly making their way across the field.

Keith doesn’t look up from where he’s been digging around in his bag.

“Hey,” Lance says.

Keith doesn’t respond until he’s unwrapped what looks like small candy. He pops it into his mouth. “Hi,” he says wearily.

Shit, he said Hi back. Lance didn’t think he’d make it this far. Lance can’t help the way his gaze always finds itself on Keith’s face, the way Keith is constantly chewing on his bottom lip, or how he can never seem to stop twirling the strands of his hair. God, the things he’d do to get his hands in that hair.

“How’s your finger?” Lance asks and awkwardly points to the bandaged digit.

“It’s…fine.” Keith looks down and rubs at it softly. “Still waiting to hear back from the doctor about the amputation.”

Lance rolls and his eyes. “Shutup,” he laughs. Keith sticks his hand in his bag and pulls out another small white candy. “Uh, whatcha eating?”

“Mitsuya Cider candy,” Keith says around the small candy. He stares at Lance without blinking and Lance feels his face go hot.

“Never heard of it. Can I try one?” His voice definitely does _not_ crack.

Keith’s mouth stops moving and raises an eyebrow. Still looking at Lance, Keith reaches into the bag of candy, pulls one out, and tosses it to him.

It takes Lance longer than necessary to open the small candy because his hands are sweating. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. It’s just Keith. Ha, _just_ Keith. Okay.

Well, thinking about Keith and being in the presence of Keith is the reason he pulls the candy wrapper a little _too_ hard and flings the candy straight at Keith’s forehead.

Lance’s eyes widen in horror.

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and his eyes cross with how hard he’s trying to look at his forehead, like he’s checking for permanent damage.

Lance feels a little faint. Why is he such a mess?

“Did you just… throw candy at me? Candy that I _gave_ you?”

“No! I—It was an accident! My hands are sweaty and they usually get sweaty when I’m nervous but I _swear—“_

“Why are you nervous?”

“I’m nervous? Who said I was nervous? I’m not nervous.” _Ground, please swallow me._

“You… just said. Never mind. Here.” Keith digs into the bag again, opens the candy himself, and holds it out to Lance.

Lance swallows and tries not to think about how Keith’s bare hands have touched the candy. He pops it into this mouth.

“It’s fizzy!” Lance remarks, smiling wide around the candy. “And it’s Grape, which, is the best flavor of _anything_ in my correct opinion. Where’d you get them from?”

“My brother buys them for me.”

“Ooo, Shiro, right? Man, your brother is so badass. I remember when I was thirteen and being like, ‘Yeah, that’s who I wanna be when I grow up.’ He was like, _huge._ And on top of that he was like the sweetest guy ever. Whenever some kid in a younger grade tried to talk to him, he never brushed them off, he just… talked to them like a normal person. You know how older people can be. But yeah, everyone definitely had a crush on him. He was always with that one guy, I forgot his name. Alex? Adam? People used to say they were boyfriends and to be honest, that was the reason I felt so comf—Um.”

Lance always talks more than he should. He should really learn to stop.

But Keith just snorts and says, “Stop talking with your mouth full or you’ll choke.”

“It’s fine. You’ll save me,” Lance says confidently. Jesus, _who is he? You’ll save me?? Really?_

“I don’t know the Heimlich.”

Lance frowns. “That’s very irresponsible of you, Keith.”

“Do _you_ know the Heimlich?” Keith retorts.

“Uh… I know the basics? There’s kissing involved, I think.”

Keith lets out an embarrassing snort and tries to cover it with a cough.

“Wow, I made Keith Kogane laugh, someone sound the alarms," Lance teases. The candy in his mouth has shrunken so he does what any normal person would do and swallows it. He should ask Keith for another. They’re really good.

“Shutup,” Keith grumbles.

Lance tries to wipe his sweaty hands on his shorts but it doesn’t actually help because his shorts

are soaked with sweat too. God, he probably reeks. He moves up to sit sideways one bleacher down from where Keith is. Keith doesn’t say anything so Lance assumes the proximity is okay.

The air is getting cooler and the bleachers are becoming emptier as students begin to pack up

and leave. The Janitor will probably kick them out sooner or later. Lance won’t say

anything though. He wants as much time with Keith as he can get, especially since Keith isn’t yelling at him to leave. The sun will begin to set which means Lance will get to see how beautiful Keith looks bathed in the colorful light.

Keith breaks the silence. “Your staring is getting better,” he says. So blunt. “Or… worse? You don’t stare as much, I mean.”

Lance chokes on his own spit. He coughs a couple of times and wheezes out an answer. “Sorry, I

think I got some fizz stuck in my throat.” He clears his throat. “But uh…I don’t really know what to say to that, honestly. I’m a little embarrassed.”

Keith shrugs. “You don’t have to say anything. I was just making an observation. Thank you… I

think.”

Lance coughs again. “You’re welcome.”

Lance feels a little guilty now because he didn’t actually put a ton of effort into Not staring. He’s just been sneakier about it, yeah, but he hasn’t really stopped.

“You’re the one who stares now,” Lance says because he doesn’t care about his life. Okay, so he

caught him staring like once. Still, it counts.

“I only stare to make sure _you’re_ not staring,” Keith scowls.

He looks like an angry kitten. He doesn’t look at all menacing so Lance just smiles at him.

“Why are you smiling like that…” Keith asks hesitantly. He’s no longer scowling.

“It’s cute how quickly your mood changes. Your little vampire teeth aren’t as scary as you think they are, though.”

Keith touches his mouth self-consciously before he drops his gaze to glare somewhere near Lance’s feet. “I’m not… _cute,”_ he spits.

“Nah, you are,” Lance assures. “Your milkshake is definitely bringing all of the boys and all of the girls to your yard.” Lance rubs at his chin and thinks over the lyrics. “Well,” he mumbles mostly to himself, “I’m not really sure what milkshake means in this situation so if you’re lactose intolerant I guess it would do the opposite if you’re gassy…”

He looks up when he hears giggling.

Keith’s cheeks are red with the prettiest flush Lance has ever seen. His hand is covering his mouth but Lance can see his smile poking through and the giggles fill the air with the world’s sweetest sound.

Did _Lance_ do that?

“You’re so dumb,” Keith says in between giggles.

Lance smiles so wide his vision goes blurry. He feels so light in that moment he thinks he might float away.

“ _Wow,_ Keith Kogane thinks I’m funny. Is this a dream?” Lance says dreamily, batting his eyelashes at Keith.

“Idiot,” Keith whispers. He’s smiling at Lance now and thinks he’d be okay with floating into space if that smile is the last thing he sees.

They stare at each other, smiling softly, before they hear a long bang that startles both of them. They turn to the Janitor. He bangs the broom against the bleachers again and yells, “Alright fellas, time to go!”

“Okay! Sorry!” Lance yells back. He checks his watch and sees it’s after 5:30pm. “Shit, I was supposed to be home five minutes ago.”

“Um, I could….give you a ride?” Keith proposes. He rubs the back of his neck and refuses to look Lance in the eye. God, Keith is so awkward. Lance likes him _so_ much.

“Y-yeah. That would be nice. Thank you.”

Keith nods at him and starts packing up his things. His hair looks so pretty falling in his face and Lance wants to _touch._

“Uh, Lance? Aren’t you gonna pack up?”

Shit, he was staring again. He hopes he won’t get in trouble for that. He nods his head jerkily and runs down the bleachers, nearly busting his ass.

As he’s packing up his things, he thinks about how he’s going to be in Keith’s car. Keith is going to _drive him home_. Like a gentleman. Oh man, wait until Hunk finds out. Lance is giddy with excitement.

The Janitor is nowhere to be seen so Lance and Keith just walk towards the gate that leads to the student parking lot. Keith walks him over to a beat up blue Camaro with black stripes on the hood. Lance always wondered what kind of car someone like Keith Kogane would drive. Keith was always one of the first people out of the building when school was let out and Lance usually had practice after school so he had never gotten the opportunity to actually see his ride. He thinks he likes it.

“ _This_ is your car?” he asks incredulously.

“Yeah…” Keith says calmly. “I know it’s shitty. It was passed down. It was my Dad’s.”

“No! It’s cool. Um,” Lance murmurs. “Is he….?”

“What?”

Lance makes a slicing gestures across his neck and Keith straight up laughs at him. Lance wishes people still talked about Keith’s life so he would know these things and not embarrass himself. Well, actually, no he doesn’t. He’s fine with embarrassment if it means people leave Keith alone.

“ _Dead?_ No, Lance. My father is very much alive. He lives back in Texas.” He must see the question in Lance’s eyes because he adds on, “Divorce.”

“Ah, got it. Sorry.”

Keith just shakes his head and unlocks the trunk. They both move towards the back and set their bags down neatly next to what seem like a junk load of art stuff. Huh, Lance thought he knew everything about Keith. Turns out there is more to Keith than meets the eye. Before he can ask about Keith’s apparent hobbies, Keith closes the trunk. Welp, maybe another time.

Lance watches as Keith slides into the driver’s seat with practiced ease. He watches as Keith puts his hand on Lance’s seat and twists his body to see as he reverses out of the parking space. He doesn’t know why but something about the way Keith turns the wheel so easily is really attractive to Lance. _God,_ he’s so thirsty.

Once they’re in the car and driving out of the parking lot, Lance gives Keith the directions to his house. He doesn’t live too far from the school. Lance pulls out his phone and calmly texts Hunk.

**Lance [5:36pm]**

_HUNK_

_IM IN KEITHS CAR_

_LIK E I AM IN HIS PASSENGERS SEATT_

_BECAUS HE IS DRIVING ME HOME_

_HUNK!!1!!!!_

**Hunk [5:37pm]**

_Alright, first of all. Please calm down._

_Second of all, WHAT THE HECK???_

**Lance [5:37pm]**

_I KNOW_

_HE OFFERED ME A RIDE_

_we were hanging out after i did my laps and stuff and we were just talking about random shit and then he smiled nd i almost died hhnnjh_

**Hunk [5:38pm]**

_I can’t believe how perfectly it’s working out for you. Not even two weeks before he basically told you off and now he’s giving you rides?? Even after you almost took his finger off? I’m impressed!_

**Lance [5:39pm]**

_dude. i think my plan is working. all i had to do was be my normal self and look where that’s gotten me??? IN HIS CAR HUNK_

_we’re definitely gonna fall in love and get married_

**Hunk [5:40pm]**

_Lol calm down bud. First worry about establishing an actual friendship. THEN you can get married and fall in love :-)_

**Lance [5:41pm]**

_ur right lmao_

_anyway he looks so hot when he drives_

_i can smell him from here and oh my ggod_

**Hunk [5:41pm]**

_TMI :-/_

_I’m happy for you buddy. Now talk to him and stop texting me!_

**Lance [5:42pm]**

_right. gotta flirt with my future husband. ttyl love u_

Lance pockets his phone and looks at Keith. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration, like he’s making sure he isn’t breaking any traffic laws.

“Do you always drive like an old man?” Lance questions.

Keith doesn’t look at him until they stop at a red light. “No, actually. I usually don’t care but you’re in the car and I don’t wanna scare you.”

“Pffft, you? Scare _me_? Mr. Kitty Fangs? Yeah right,” Lance laughs and laughs and laughs and then he’s screaming.

The tires screech, the engine roars, smoke begins to cloud the windows, and Lance’s fingers hurt from how hard he’s holding the door. His other hand is squeezing the life out of Keith’s very muscular bicep but he can’t think about that because he’s going to _die._

“Keith! Oh my god, Keith, stop. STOP. I’m sorry, I take it back. We’re going to die. My Mom is going to kill me if I die. KEITH.”

Keith finds it all incredibly funny because he’s cackling like a madman in the driver’s seat as he slows down the car. Lance glares at him as his heart tries to crawl out of his ass.

“Calm down,” Keith laughs some more. “We barely moved.”

Lance thinks there’s no way that’s true. Forget the road, it felt like they left the planet. But when he looks out his window, he can see they’ve only moved a few feet.

Keith starts driving at a normal speed when the cars behind them start honking.

“Still not scared, huh?” Keith says, smiling.

“Hold on,” Lance wheezes, “I’ll tell you once I can feel my face again.”

“ _Ha_ , punk. Hey, is this your street?”

It is in fact Lance’s street. He’s sad the ride didn’t last longer. Maybe he should’ve accidentally given Keith the wrong address so that they’d be able to—

“Lance?”

“Oh! Shit, sorry. Yeah, this is my street. It’s the, uh, red house on the left. Thanks.”

“Mhm.”

Keith pulls up right in front of the little red house filled to the brim with Lance’s family. There’s an awkward silence for a second before Lance’s speaks.

“Thank you, again, for taking me home. You didn’t have to. Especially since I almost killed you like _twice._ Although that little trick you did with the car could probably cancel out both of my attempts at murder. But yeah… thanks.”

Keith laughs softly. “You’re welcome. You know,” he pauses, catches Lance’s eye and then looks away. “You’re not _that_ bad. Like, as a person.”

“Wow, top tier compliment, Keith. I’m flattered.”

“Shutup,” Keith murmurs. He slaps Lance’s arm in a playful gesture.

A thought occurs to Lance and before he gives himself a chance to dwell on it, he says, “You should give me your number.”

Keith simply raises an eyebrow in question.

Lance ignores all of the warnings in this head that are telling him to _chill out._ “You know, in case I need a ride again. And so I can know what the doctor says about your finger.”

“I didn’t actually go to the doctor, you know that right?”

“Yeah,” Lance nods. “I know.”

Keith looks at him for a second, eyes searching before he moves around to fetch his phone from his pant pocket. He touches a couple buttons on his phone screen and then passes the phone to Lance. A new contact page is open and Lance types in his name followed by a blue heart. He hesitates before sending himself a text: _Mr. Kitty Fangs!!!_

He hands the phone back to Keith and sees the corner of Keith’s mouth quirk as he reads the text.

“Well, I should go. Thanks again for the ride.”

“You said that already.” Keith smiles. It’s such a nice smile. Damn.

“Right. See ya.”

He hops out of the car and grabs his bag from the trunk once Keith unlocks it. He waves to Keith as he walks towards the kitchen door located on the side of the house. He can already hear his family. Always so loud, no matter the time of day. He watches Keith’s little wave and smiles a small private smile, just for him.

God. That boy.

“Lance! Where the hell have you been?” Rachel, Lance’s sister, yells across the kitchen as soon as he’s inside.

“ _Rachel_ , language. I’m not going to say it again.” Lance’s Dad scolds from the couch. He’s watching some game show with Lance’s brother, Marco.

“That doesn’t even make sense, you’ve only said it once,” Rachel mumbles, not loud enough for their Dad to hear.

Lance doesn’t pay attention to any of them. Not even his niece, Nadia, where she’s pulling at Lance’s hand asking if he wants to play House. He’s too busy watching his Mom. She’s watching him back with such concentration that he fears he’s done something wrong. He’s only twenty minutes late _at most._ No biggie.

“Come here,” she says gently. There’s no anger in her voice. She’s just as sweet as she’s always been. It’s fine, everything is fine.

He removes his hand from Nadia’s grip and drops his bag where he stands. He takes a breath and then walks over to her. “Hi, Mamá.”

“Lance, who was that boy who took you home? Was that…?” she trails off but he already knows who she’s talking about. She’s right of course. She knows who it is. Lance has in fact talked about Keith to his Mom before. He doesn’t know how she connected the dots so quickly but he guesses that’s just how Moms are.

“Yeah, that’s Keith.”

“Oh! Are you two..?”

“No, Mamá.” he sighs. “Well… not yet.” He smiles at her as she holds his face in her palm.

“You wouldn’t be my son if you didn’t go after what you wanted,” she laughs softly. “Now, go clean up. You stink.”

“Sí, Mamá,” he grins and places a kiss to her cheek.

+++

Later that night, Lance lays in bed and counts the stars that are taped to his ceiling.

He really likes Keith. He didn’t think it was possible for him to like Keith _more_ but he was wrong. Actually talking to Keith is so much better than pining from afar. Lance was _so_ wrong.

He needs to find out more about him, though. But can he just go up and ask Keith? He knows he has his number now but is he allowed to text him? He usually wouldn’t think twice but it’s _Keith._ Keith’s always been different. It’s why he’s so nervous when he’s around him. Whatever, he’ll worry about it later. Instead, he decides to get some help from an expert.

**Lance [7:00pm]**

_hey_

_i need a favor to ask_

_or i have a question_

_also hello how are u yadda yadda_

**Shiro [7:23pm]**

_Hey Lance! I’m doing great._

_And sure. What’s up?_

**Lance [7:24pm]**

_this might sound weird but bear with me_

_do u happen to know keith’s fav genre of movies??_

**Shiro [7:29pm]**

_Oh um let’s see._

_Even though he pisses his pants he loves horror movies._

_Please don’t tell him I told you that._

****

**Lance [7:30pm]**

_LOL no way_

_but thank u!!!!! really appreciate it man_

**Shiro [7:33pm]**

_Can I ask why you’re asking me and not him?_

****

**Lance [7:33pm]**

_keith and i aren’t exactly friends but you and i are, i guess?_

**Shiro [7:37pm]**

_You’re not friends? But Keith talks about you all the time. I kind of assumed you were friends._

Lance sits up so quickly he nearly falls off his bed. He flails about for a second before he rights himself. He re-reads the message once, twice, thrice. There’s no way—no.

****

**Lance [7:38pm]**

_???_

_keith talks about me????_

_why? what does he say?_

**Lance [7:44pm]**

_??? SHIRO??_

**Shiro [7:45pm]**

_Nevermind! I don’t know why I said that. I must have been mistaken._

_Forget I said anything. Have a nice day! Tell your parents I say hello._

**Lance [7:45pm]**

_no come back and tell me what you mean!!_

**Lance [7:53pm]**

_SHIROGANEEEE!!!_

Lance sighs and plops back against his pillows. Now, what the fuck was that.

+++

Lance spends the next week watching horror movies whenever he has time.

He wakes up early and watches American Psycho before school. Definitely more graphic violence than he can stomach so early in the morning but at least the main character’s kinda hot. He secretly watches Shaun of the Dead during Calculus and almost gets in trouble when he forgets he isn’t supposed to be laughing in the middle of trying to find limits. He watches Keith in line during lunch for a few minutes and then makes Hunk watch some of The Exorcist with him. He ends up really liking it for some reason even though he knows it will give him nightmares.

When he finds Keith in the library during their seminar period, he doesn’t mention that he’s been watching scary movies for him. He hopes Shiro hadn’t mentioned their conversation to Keith.

Lance decides to occupy the bean bag chair across from Keith. They sit in silence for approximately four minutes before they stop doing work and instead talk to each other.

Lance is pleasantly surprised when Keith actually opens up to him a little.

Lance learns that Keith grew up in Texas and moved to California to live with his Mom after the divorce and that he still talks to his Dad daily and even visits him during holidays. Lance tells him it took him a while to stop being angry when they moved away from Cuba. They both go silent for a moment and then Lance asks about Keith’s car.

They spend the rest of the period talking about cars. How Keith learned to drive from his Dad and how he would force Shiro to be his passenger because he was over twenty-one and Keith was a newly licensed sixteen year old. Lance tells him how just last year he illegally took Hunk for a ride at one in the morning and half-way through the drive they both got paranoid thinking they would be pulled over and arrested. Lance had turned back and, scared shitless, almost drove into a Church.

“ _How_ the hell do you almost drive into a Church?” Keith asks, bewildered.

“Okay, listen. I kind of forgot the street had a lot of turns and it was dark and I was scared. We went straight down a hill and almost hit the Church. I mean, I did stop in time but can you _imagine?_ I would definitely not get a ticket to heaven.”

Keith laughs and then gets shushed by the librarian. In a quiet voice he says, “You’re such a mess, you know that, right?” He doesn’t say it as a insult. He smiles and softly kicks at Lance’s shin.

“How you put up with me, Kogane, I do not know.”

“It’s not easy but it’s worth it.” Keith’s eyes go wide. He runs a hand through his hair and clears his throat. “We...we should get back to work.”

“Y-yeah,” Lance falters. They’re both flushed and embarrassed but choose to pretend like nothing happened.

+++

**Lance [8:12pm]**

_hey u ever seen The Witch?_

**Keith [8:16pm]**

_yeah i really liked it. why?_

**Lance [8:16pm]**

_cause im watching it rn and im falling asleep_

_should i keep watching or_

**Keith [8:17pm]**

_i don’t know. i mean just because i liked it doesn’t mean you have to. maybe give it another try?_

**Lance [8:18pm]**

_alright ill keep watching_

Okay, how does he keep the conversation going? Lance taps his chin and thinks. Before he can type out something random, his phone buzzes.

**Keith [8:20pm]**

_uh we could facetime? so i can make sure you don’t fall asleep again_

**Lance [8:21pm]**

_yeah okay!! gimme a sec_

Lance jumps up and runs to the bathroom. He quickly washes his face and tries to fix his hair. He changes his shirt so Keith doesn’t know he’s been in the same shirt since school let out that day. God, is he supposed to call? Or should he wait for Keith to call?

He calls.

As it rings, Lance fumbles for his headphones and tries to un-tangle them. He lets out of a groan of frustration just as Keith picks up.

“Uh, you good?” Wow, Keith’s voice sounds so nice through the tiny speaker of his phone.

“Um! Just gimme a second. I’m trying to– oh, got it. There. Hi,” he says breathlessly. He has to move his phone back so Keith doesn’t see his nostrils.

“Hi,” Keith says, clearly amused. He’s sitting at what looks like his desk, in a red hoodie with his hair tied up. Lance resists the urge to sigh dreamily. “I pulled the movie up. What time are you at?”

“Lemme check. Uh, seven minutes and ten seconds in.”

“You were falling asleep seven minutes in?” Keith raises an eyebrow.

Lance huffs. “It was _boring._ I can’t control how my brain reacts.”

“Alright. I’m at seven ten. Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Ok, ready.”

They watch the movie and don’t talk. Lance gets distracted by Keith’s face a few dozen times. Keith catches him watching and just shakes his head and smiles. “Keep watching,” he murmurs.

Lance hides his smile in his shoulder and keeps watching.

And then his eyes find themselves on Keith’s face again. Now, Keith doesn’t say anything, he just lets him watch. Sometimes he’ll even watch Lance back, if only for a few seconds at a time. It’s electrifying.

When the movie finally ends, Keith turns to him.

“So, did you like it?” Keith asks.

“Oh yeah,” Lance says and nods his head seriously. “Ten outta ten. Best movie I’ve ever seen.”

Keith laughs and his eyes crinkle cutely at the end. “You weren’t even looking half the time.”

“Well, who can blame me when there are more interesting things to look at.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Keith whispers meeting his eyes.

They both know what he’s talking about. Is this flirting? Are they _flirting_? Fuck, is Lance really this smooth or is he just extremely lucky?

“It’s late, I should…go to bed. You too. Um, you should go to bed too.”

“Yeah, if my Mom catches me up,” Lance says and looks guiltily towards his door. “Thanks for… watching the movie with me.”

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, g–“ Keith hangs up before Lance can say goodnight. He immediately opens up his text messages.

**Lance [9:45pm]**

_goodnight!!!_

**Keith [9:47pm]**

_goodnight_

Lance smiles at the message. Keith definitely likes him.

He texts Hunk.

**Lance [9:58pm]**

_before i go to sleep i just wanna tell u that i just got off of ft with keith :)))) <3 _

_im so happy right now_

_gn love you!!!_

+++

That night changes something between them.

They text more frequently and facetime at least three times a week now. They sometimes sit together at lunch and talk after Lance’s track practices. Keith says Hi to him in the hallways. They’re definitely friends now.

Lance doesn’t think Keith is in love with him but sometimes he can feel Keith watching him when he thinks Lance isn’t looking. It’s interesting, Lance thinks, the way the tables turn. How this entire thing started because Lance somehow couldn’t keep this eyes off of Keith. That Lance has been so captivated by Keith for so long that at some point he no longer had control over his heart. Or his eyes. That he can’t help but stare at Keith’s strong jaw or the way his fingers twirl his pencil absentmindedly during class. He can’t stop looking when Keith smiles at something dumb Lance says or the way his hair falls into his face when he’s trying to hide away. He wonders if the reason Keith has begun to watch him so much now is because he somehow feels the same way as Lance. That he also can’t help that his eyes want to seek out Lance whenever they’re near.

Lance is going to make his move soon. He doesn’t know when or where but it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. 

+++

**Keith [1:32pm]**

_are you coming to the tracks today?_

**Lance [1:35pm]**

_ahhh i cant! not rn_

_im helping allura with something for yearbook_

**Keith [1:36pm]**

_oh okay, nevermind then_

**Lance [1:36pm]**

_why? are u out there rn?_

**Keith [1:36pm]**

_yeah im on the bleachers_

_it’s fine though. keep helping allura_

**Lance [1:39pm]**

_well im almost done here so i can come in a few?_

_and maybe get a few laps done_

He wasn’t playing on it today but he can he if it means he’ll get to see Keith.

**Keith [1:40pm]**

_nah it’s fine just stay there. don’t rush for me_

**Lance [1:46pm]**

_nope! i’m omw_

+++

**Lance [12:12am]**

_ok i liked that movie waaaay better than the clown one_

**Keith [12:14am]**

_lol yeah clowns aren’t really my thing_

_not that i’m scared of them i just can’t take them seriously_

**Lance [12:15am]**

_wow im the complete opposite. i didn’t like the clowns cus they scare the shit outta me LOL_

**Lance [12:22am]**

_so what are u doing for thanksgiving break_

**Keith [12:23am]**

_i’m gonna go to my dad’s. i think my mom might be going too? and shiro too_

**Lance [12:24am]**

_really?? so they’re getting along better then?_

_that’s good. i hope u have fun!:D_

**Keith [12:25am]**

_yeah, thanks_

_i’m really nervous though_

_the last time we were all together was.. 2 years ago i thnk?_

_i’m really glad shiro’s able to make it this time cause he’s always been good at being the balance between us all_

_god im sorry for just throwing this all at you_

_i didn’t even ask if i could just…unload. my bad_

**Lance [12:30am]**

_no!! it’s fine keith_

_i swear. im so happy ur comfortable enough to talk to me about this stuff_

_it’s good that shiro’s going! i know how close u guys are. im glad u have that support_

**Keith [12:31am]**

_yeah thanks.. can i ca_

_sorry sent that too soon_

_can i call you?_

**Lance [12:32am]**

_always_

+++

**Lance [10:46am]**

_do u think keith is in love with me yet_

**Hunk [10:48am]**

_I’m sitting right next to you, you could just ask me to my face dude_

**Lance [10:48am]**

_ik but im embarrassed :((_

_so do u think he’s head over heels or no_

**Hunk [10:50am]**

_Fine. Honestly, I think he does like you. Or I think you at least gotta chance with him_

**Lance [10:51am]**

_dfefasd;la;???@_

**Hunk [10:52am]**

_Awww you’re blushing bro_

_Lance and Keith sitting in a tree_

_K-i-s-i-s-i-n-g_

_Wait did I spell that wrong_

+++

Lance sees Keith while he’s doing his laps, again.

Lance feels like lately he’s been seeing Keith sitting there in the stands while he runs more often. Maybe it’s the nice weather. But he thinks about how today he decided to do his laps after school instead of during his seminar period and yet, Keith is here. It probably has nothing to do with Lance. Are they the type of friends who wait for each other after school?

There are only two other people around them and they’re passing a soccer ball between each other near the other end of the field. Lance doesn’t recognize them. Maybe Keith knows them.

Lance runs and watches Keith do nothing. Keith never looks up, too busy messing around in his bag. Lance runs and watches Keith and then Keith starts to put his hair up in a ponytail and Lance trips on air. He lets out a shriek as he goes down. His knees and his palms burn but most of all, his face runs hot with embarrassment. He doesn’t try to get up, just waits for the ground to swallow him but no matter how much he begs, it doesn’t.

Lance is still on the floor as he hears Keith nosily come down from the bleachers. Keith’s getting closer and then Lance feels him softly poke at his side with the toe of his shoe.

“Uh, you dead?” Keith asks. Lance can hear the smile in his voice.

Lance grumbles into the synthetic rubber. “Yes. I’ve seen the light and crossed into the other world. Please let me rest in pieces.”

Keith laughs and then plops down next to Lance, criss-cross applesauce.

Lance thinks if he doesn’t move then Keith might forget he’s here. Then, he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed.

“Lance.” Keith pokes Lance in the shoulder with his finger.

Lance groans and pushes himself up into a half push-up. He winces when his palms scrape against the ground. He mirrors Keith and crosses his legs together but that turns out to be a bad idea because his knees start to burn. He unfolds his legs and places them on either side of Keith.

Keith just looks at him, holds out his hand, and makes a grabby motion. “Lemme see the damage.”

“It’s not that bad, I’m just being dramatic,” Lance mumbles but holds out his hands for Keith to see.

Keith carefully holds both of Lance’s hands and pulls them close to his face for inspection. Lance watches Keith’s face scrunch up, watches as he turns and flips Lance’s hands over and over. Lance thinks that maybe Keith is a little more dramatic than him.

Keith lets go of one of Lance’s hands and runs his fingers gently up and down Lance’s palm. Lance shivers. _Stop being so gay,_ he scolds himself, _they’re just hands._

Then, Lance feels those fingers touching his knee. Keith runs his thumb back and forth right under the small wound of Lance’s left leg. Lance swallows. 

“We should get you patched up,” Keith says and looks up at him, eyes serious. “I have a first aid kit in my bag. Come on.” He pats the side of Lance’s leg and gets up.

Lance follows dumbly behind him and stares at the way his pony tail swings back and forth. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Keith’s bare neck before. Why is his neck _attractive_?

Once they reach Keith’s bag, Keith sits with both of his legs on either side of the bench and Lance moves to mirror him. Keith digs around in his bag and pulls out a small white box. He doesn’t speak as he begins to take out gloves, bandages, band-aids, antiseptic cream, and wipes.

Lance’s eyes widen. “Keith, buddy, are you gonna perform _surgery_? That stuff looks kinda scary.” He does not mention that he used to run away whenever his Mom tried to clean his wounds from all of his falls as a child because he was scared of the liquid that made his cuts hurt even more.

Keith frowns. “I need to make sure your scrapes don’t get infected.”

“They’re not deep at all. I’m not even bleeding. Look, I feel better already.” He claps his hands on his knees to prove his point. He barely manages to suppress a wince because it _stings._ Why does his skin have to be so sensitive?

Keith sees right through his façade and ignores him. “Fine. I’ll still clean them but I’ll just use water.”

Lance relaxes a bit and holds out his hands. Keith pulls out a water bottle from his bag and uncaps it. He moves Lance’s hands to the side so the water doesn’t get onto his things as he pours it on Lance’s wounds. He works slowly and methodically through the entire process, making sure he doesn’t press too hard when wiping down Lance’s wounds with the alcohol-free wipes. He lifts up the bandages and raises an eyebrow in question.

“Definitely not necessary,” Lance says. “Maybe a couple band-aids for my knees?”

Keith nods and begins to rip open a band-aid.

“Why do you even have a first aid kit in your bag? I thought those were only for kids.”

Keith rolls his eyes and places the first blue band-aid on one of Lance’s knees. “Shiro makes me carry it around.”

“Really?” Lance snorts.

“Yeah,” Keith says and opens the second band-aid. “I’d rather just listen to him than hear him bitch when I forget to clean one of my cuts and it gets infected later.”

“That happen a lot?”

“More times than I can count. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just laziness. Most times I just lick the cuts clean.”

Lance scrunches up his noise. “That’s disgusting.”

Keith shrugs and places the second band-aid on Lance’s other knee. He taps it softly after he’s done. “There, all better.”

“Thank you,” Lance says softly.

“When I was younger,” Keith begins as he starts packing everything up, “I used to fall _all the time_. I was a clumsy ass kid. I was always tripping over cracks in the sidewalk or trying to climb everything. My Mom would always find week old scabs on me with no idea how I got them. I kind of… did not grow out of that. Now, Shiro makes me carry this thing around and I have to promise him that I’ll clean every cut or scrape.”

Lance can’t help put smile. “Aw, he cares about you.”

“Of course he does, he’s my brother. It’s his job.”

“Right,” Lance agrees. “You should tell my older brother that. He’s actually the _cause_ of most of my scars.”

Keith snickers. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, so is Shiro. Look,” he lifts up his arm and shows Lance his elbow. There’s a small hook shaped scar on it. “This was because of Shiro. He was trying to give me a wet willy and I ran from him. Tried to hop a fence to get away and got caught on one of the chain things. Hurt like hell.”

“No way!” Lance gasps. He lifts up his middle finger on his left hand. “I got caught on one of those too! I was like ten. I hung there like a fish for a little while before anyone noticed.” His scar looks more like a deformed anchor.

“Wow, we have matching scars,” Keith says smiling. He lifts his elbow towards Lance’s face.

Lance smiles back and touches his finger to Keith’s elbow. “Boop. Guess we do.”

Keith snorts and looks out towards the horizon. He looks so beautiful with the orange glow of the sky behind him. Lance doesn’t turn away when Keith catches him staring. Keith doesn’t call him out on it either.

“Did Shiro also give you that scar?” Lance touches his own cheek where he would be touching Keith’s if he had the balls to.

“Yeah, uh,” Keith touches the scar, “He didn’t mean to, it was an accident. He felt so bad when it happened, he basically did everything I wanted for the next couple of months. And then he got over the guilt and turned back into the annoying brother that he is.”

“Ha, Shiro? Annoying, no way.”

Keith sends him a _look._ “You’re not his family. He can be _very_ annoying.”

Lance shrugs. He thinks _fuck it_ and raises his hand to touch Keith’s cheek but doesn’t until Keith moves his face closer to Lance’s hand in approval.

Lance cups his cheek and softly rubs his thumb against Keith’s cheek. He follows the arc of the scar and feels the slowly raised skin under his finger.

“Do you hate it?” Keith whispers.

Lance’s eyes snap up to Keith’s. “What?” he asks, clear confusion in his voice. “Of course not, why would you ask me that?”

“Kids at my old school hated it. Kids at this school hate it. They think it makes me look weird.”

“They’re idiots,” Lance says seriously. “Keith, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. You don’t even know…”

Keith tilts his head down shyly and Lance’s hand falls back into his lap. He doesn’t know where the sudden bravery came from but he doesn’t regret it. If the small smile on Keith’s face says anything, it’s that Lance didn’t say anything wrong this time.

“You think the Janitor’s gonna come yell at us again?” Keith asks.

“Probably.”

“I could take you home.”

“I’d like that.”

They stare at each other for a very gay amount of time and only look away when the Janitor starts banging on the bleachers.

“Sorry!” Lance laughs and hops down the steps to where his stuff is.

Less than five minutes later, they’re sitting in Keith’s car. He spends a few minutes trying to figure out a way to start a conversation when Keith turns up the music.

“I should have known you’d like this kind of music.”

“What?” Keith scowls. “What’s wrong with Par–“

“Nothing!” Lance giggles. “It’s just funny. They’re a good band, dude, chill. I like them too.”

“You better,” Keith grumbles. “They were a pivotal part of my teenage angst years.”

Lance cracks-up at that and doesn’t stop laughing until Keith punches his arm.

“Great!” Lance complains, “Now I’m gonna have a bruise!”

“I _tapped_ you. Barely.”

“No, you tried to take my arm off.”

Keith scoffs. He mumbles something under his breathe that Lance can’t make out as he turns on Lance’s street.

“Huh? I didn’t hear you? Mind repeating that?”

Keith parks outside of his house and turns to Lance. He rolls his eyes. “ _I said,_ if you keep being dramatic then maybe I _will_ really take your arm off.” He lifts his hand like he’s going to hit Lance again but Lance doesn’t even let him try. He grabs hold of Keith’s wrist.

“Oh, nu-uh. Don’t even think about it.” He doesn’t let go of Keith’s wrist. “Stop being so violent.”

“I’ll show you violent,” Keith says as he lets out a burst of laughter and attacks Lance.

“Keith, _no!_ ” 

There’s a tangle of limbs as they fight to hit each other. Lance gets an elbow to his chin and Keith’s get a slap to the side of his head.

“Okay, okay, truce!” Lance lets out a shriek when Keith goes to tickle his side. “Keith, please! I’m _begging_ you to _chill._ ”

They’re both out of breath when they finally settle down. They’re also holding hands.

“You done crying?” Keith says, breathless. He squeezes Lance’s hands and doesn’t let go.

“I wasn’t crying!” Lance exclaims. “I’m just very delicate.” He lets go of one of Keith’s hands to wipe away a stray tear.

Before he can put his hand down, Keith grabs it and pulls it back down to the center console. He looks down at their hands and rubs his thumbs over Lance’s knuckles.

“Delicate, huh?”

“Hmm.” Lance looks up at Keith and then catches movement out of the corner of his eye. Someone is watching them from behind the curtain of his house. Probably the kids. Or his sisters. “Thank you for… patching me up. I’ll try to be less clumsy next time.” He gives Keith a wry smile.

“It’s fine,” Keith frowns slightly. “I don’t mind.”

“You sure as hell minded _something_ when you almost took my head off for staring at you.” He means it at a joke but Keith’s doesn’t laugh.

“Lance,” Keith falters, “About that, I don’t…” He sighs and lets go of one of Lance’s hands to rub at his eye. He turns back to Lance. “I don’t think it’s fair to me to have said that to you when I putting myself in your line of view, like on purpose.”

Lance pulls his hand away him Keith’s weak grasp. “What? What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t a coincidence that you saw me more this year. I know we’ve had a couple classes together and stuff but. I kind of started walking by the tracks to get to my car. Or, um, I stopped eating in the art room so that you’d see me in the cafeteria.”

Lance doesn’t say anything. He wants to ask _why the hell would you do that_ but he can’t seem to get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth.

Keith must see Lance struggling with his words because he just lifts one shoulder awkwardly and looks away. “Yeah… I also changed my routes when walking to class. Is that weird?”

Lance lets out a breathless laugh. “Is it bad that I don’t think it’s weird at all? If you were anyone else then maybe but you’re not so. But, can I ask why?”

“Fuck, this is so embarrassing.” Keith let his head fall back against his headrest and drags his hands through his hair.

“ _What,_ Keith? Why are you– Oh god.” His eyes go wide when he looks past Keith to his front door. Whoever was spying on them is no longer hiding behind the curtain. In fact, it seems like his entire family is trying to fit through the door to get a peek at Keith and Lance.

“Uhhh, what are they doing?” Keith asks trying to hide behind his hair.

“Embarrassing me,” Lance groans. “I should go.”

“Yeah, no,” Keith says, “I’ll unlock the trunk. Um, can we–?”

“Talk about this later?” Lance cuts him off.

“Yeah. I mean, if you want to.”  
  


“Oh no no no no,” Lance huffs and points a finger at Keith, “We are _definitely_ talking about this later. I will hold you to it, Kogane.”

“Okay,” Keith laughs and holds up his hands in surrender.

“Text me or else,” Lance threatens.

“I will.”

“I mean it, don’t say you _forgot,”_ Lance starts.

“ _Lance,_ I will. Now go, I think your Dad is coming over here.”

Lance scrambles to get out of the car and grabs his things from the trunk. He walks over to the driver’s side and waits until Keith puts his window down. He leans his arm against the window sill, ignoring his family.

“I’m sorry about my family. I’m not trying to run away, I swear, I _really_ want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, me too. And we will. Later,” Keith says. He catches Lance’s gaze for a few seconds before he breaks eye contact. He continues, “Uh, I really think your Dad is coming over here.”

Lance turns around to send a glare towards his family. His Dad is fully out of the house now, arms crossed trying to look menacing. Lance glares harder. He turns back to Keith. “Wanna meet them?” He laughs when he sees Keith’s eye widen in panic. “I’m kidding, man. I’ll see you later.” He taps the window sill and then hesitates before he softly pinches Keith’s chin between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Bye,” Keith whispers.

“Bye.” Lance makes a fist so he doesn’t reach out to touch Keith again. He hears Keith drive away and when he reaches his family he stands with his hands on his hips.

“Are you guys _serious_ right now? You just scared him away!”

Although they don’t look as guilty as they should, they stay silent.

“Oh? You guys have nothing to say?”

“Come on, Lance!” Marcos tells him, exasperated. “Don’t start with the dramatics, just come in a tell us about Keith.”

“Oooo,” Nadia and Silvio chorus together, “Keeeeith!”

“God,” Lance groans. “You guys are so–“ He sighs and marches into the house and calls out to them as he makes his way into the house. “Come on then, sit around Lancey Lance so he can tell you all about Keith.”

Because they’re all so damn nosey, they trip over themselves to get to him.

+++

**Keith [5:40pm]**

_soooo did you get in trouble?_

  
**Lance [5:47pm]**

_nah lmao my fam is just really fucking nosey_

_i kinda…told them about u?_

**Keith [5:48pm]**

_uh and what exactly did you tell them?_

**Lance [5:50pm]**

_oh um just that_

_how we met and stuff. and how we started hangin out. dw it was nothing bad!!_

**Keith [6:03pm]**

_not like you would say anything bad about me anyway, punk_

_were they really that interested?_

**Lance [6:10pm]**

_HEY. i could definitely bad talk u if i wanted_

_yep they kinda already know about u? please don’t ask me to elaborate_

_btw my dad thinks ur car’s cool_

**Keith [6:11pm]**

_alright even though i really want to know i won’t ask_

_wow your dad thinks im cool haha_

**Lance [6:15pm]**

_ur car*_

_he told me to ask if he can take it out for ride_

_feel free to say no LMAO_

**Keith [6:20pm]**

_nah it’s cool he could totally take it out_

**Lance [6:22pm]**

_niiice. i’ll let him know_

_u guys can have some family bonding time. ya know, dad meets the……. :p_

Several minutes pass and Lance regrets everything, ever. _Family bonding?_ What the fuck was he thinking? Keith isn’t supposed to know they’re getting married yet.

**Lance [6:32pm]**

_are u going to l*tor’s party tmrw night?_

Lance bites at his finger nails when Keith doesn’t respond immediately. He gets up and rearranges his desk a little so he doesn’t quadruple text Keith. Then his phone buzzes. He runs to answer it.

**Keith [6:40pm]**

_lotor? yeah i guess._

_why did you censor his name?_

Okay so Keith is going to pretend like Lance didn’t say anything weird. Okay, kind of embarrassing as shit but he’ll live. Maybe.

**Lance [6:41pm]**

_lmao cus i hate him_

_but yay ill see u there then!!_

Ten minutes pass and Keith still hasn’t replied. Should Lance text and ask something? Maybe ask for a ride? Or maybe he should suggest they watch a movie together. He doesn’t want to be annoying though. He know he can get a little clingy.

Okay, he’s going to calm down and just chill for the rest of the day. And hopefully tomorrow at the party, he and Keith can have a real conversation about whatever is happening between them.

Lance throws himself onto his bed and can’t help the giddy laughter that bubbles out of his chest. 

+++

Hunk is outside at 8pm sharp the next night. He sends Lance a text to let him know when Lance is pulling on his socks. He stuffs his feet into sneakers and checks his phone.

**Hunk [8:00pm]**

_I’m outside dude_

**Lance [8:02pm]**

_omw!!_

Lance has been ready for two hours but he takes one last look at his outfit and hopes it’s good enough to catch a _certain someone’s_ eye. He grabs his cologne and sprays a completely normal amount over his body. He undoes his button on his jeans and pulls them away from his body, looks down, shrugs, and sprays himself. _Just in case,_ he thinks. His jeans are tight enough that they accentuate his assets, not that he’s packing much anyway but anything helps. He grabs his jean jacket as he heads downstairs. He kisses his parents goodbye and promises he’ll be home by one.

“You ready?” Hunk asks scrunching up his nose as soon as Lance hops in his car. “Dude, since when do you wear cologne?”

“Since tonight. Stop hating.”

“I’m not hating, it’s just so strong I think it’s in my mouth.”

Lance rolls his eyes as Hunk pulls off.

“Sooooo,” Lance says, tapping his fingers nervously on his knees. “Guess what?”

Hunk side eyes him. “What…”

“Tonight is the big night. I’m getting some tonight.”

Hunk slows down as the traffic light turns from yellow to red. “Getting some what?” He gets distracted by the fact that his engine light is on. Lance sees it in his eyes the moment his brain catches up with the conversation. He snaps his head towards Lance, eyes wide and blinking. “You mean you’re going to have…. _sex?”_ He whispers that last part like at any moment their parents are going to pop out from the backseat.

Lance blushes all the way to his toes. “Hunk! No! I’m not going to have s… _No!_ ” God, they’re such virgins. “I meant love! I’m going to get love!”

Hunk lets out a loud breath and relaxes against his seat. A car behind them honks and he presses the gas. They drive in silence for a moment before Hunk speaks up.

“So, what does that mean anyway?”

“It means,” Lance explains, “that Keith is going to confess to me tonight. Or maybe I will. I don’t know yet but there will be confessing.”

“You seem pretty confident,” Hunk remarks.

“Yeah, we… kind of had a moment yesterday? I don’t know!” If he’s being honest, they’ve had more than just one moment over the past few weeks. Lance lets his head fall against the window. Maybe he’s been reading this entire thing wrong, but there’s no point in overthinking it now, though, since he’s most likely going to get answers from Keith tonight. 

“Right,” Hunk says. He reaches over and squeezes Lance’s arm lightly. “Well, I’m rooting for you guys.”

“Thanks,” Lance mumbles and tries to reciprocate the arm squeeze without looking and ends up squeezing Hunk’s stomach.

“Lance!” Hunk laughs. “I’m driving!”

They crack up and Lance feels ten times lighter.

Lotor’s house is bigger than anything Lance has seen. It has columns spanning the entire front of the house and the front door is painted red and probably twelve feet tall.

Lotor is blessedly nowhere to be seen. Hunk and Lance duck into the house, getting stuck in the front hallway for ten minutes talking to classmates. Allura spends half of those ten minutes telling Lance about an asshole who kept trying to race her. Allura drives a sleek looking corvette so she’s constantly getting egged on to race by white boys. It’s the bane of her existence. Lance listens like the good friend that he is and nods when he’s supposed to.

He can’t stop thinking about Keith, though. He wonders if he’s here yet. Or if he’s even coming. When he can’t take the wondering, he kisses Allura on the cheek and excuses himself. He’s not sure where Hunk went; he most likely went in search for Shay. Maybe they’ll both get lucky tonight.

He wanders into the kitchen and takes a look around at the drinks and snacks. He chooses to ignore all the colorful liquids and peeks his head into Lotor’s fridge. Everything looks expensive so Lance takes some kind of peach drink. He leans back against the counter and sips on it. The drink immediately cools him. He grimaces when he sees two people making out near him and leaves the kitchen soon after.

He keeps on being his friendly extroverted self, talking when necessary but all the while his mind keeps repeating _Keith, Keith, Keith_ over and over again. Someone offers him something in a red cup and he declines. He takes off his jean jacket when it gets too hot and drapes it over his arm.

Lance ends up walking around some more and plays a game of beer (water) pong with friends, acquaintances if he’s being honest. He then finds himself in the backyard walking toward the firepits (yes, plural because there are _several_ ). There’s a long bench that wraps around all of the pits, enveloping the entire thing and giving it a cozy feeling. There are pillows scattered throughout the seating with people already taking up space.

Hunk’s there and he’s talking to Shay of course, laughing about who knows what but it must be funny enough because Lance can hear their matching snorts from across the yard. He takes a sip of his drink and then walks towards them. He sits down next to Hunk, who looks up and smiles and then immediately goes back to laughing with Shay.

They’re near the opening of the seating so Lance takes time to look around at the other people who decided that the noise from inside was too much for them too. He sees Matt, who he nods to, two girls from his track team, a few people he doesn’t recognize, and… Keith.

Keith? Keith is here. Lance takes in his red jacket and the red clips in his hair but most of all, he takes in the fact that Keith is not alone.

He’s here with someone. He’s here with…. Nicholas. Keith and _Nicholas Donovan._ Nick, the captain of the soccer team at their _rival school_? How in the hell–-

Lance feels his stomach settle somewhere near his feet. A thousand things run through his mind. When did Keith become friends with him? How? _Why?_ What kind of evil parallel universe is he in?

Lance sees Nick lean into Keith to whisper something in his ear and watches as Keith laughs softly at whatever he’s saying. Nick grins back at him and places a hand on Keith’s knee and–

Lance had thought he and Keith had _a_ moment back in Keith’s car a few days ago. And at the tracks. And on the phone. He thought they were actually getting somewhere. It doesn’t make any sense. Does he treat all of his friends that way? Is something _wrong_ with Lance?

Lance can’t take it anymore. Seeing Keith and being ignored by him when they weren’t friend is one thing, he’d gotten used to it. But slowly becoming friends with Keith and _hoping_ and then seeing Keith flirt with someone else? Right in front of him, like he doesn’t exist? What was the point of Keith telling him all that in the car if he was just going to go out and do this? He knows he has no right to be upset because he doesn’t _own_ Keith. They’re just friends, right? He’s not his boyfriend or anything. That still doesn’t make it any less bearable. It hurts. It really fucking hurts.

He doesn’t notice how tense he is until Hunk is placing a warm hand over his own where he’s squeezing his drink.

“Hey, man. You good?” Hunk asks softly.

Lance tears his gaze away from Keith and Nick to look at Hunk. He’s looking pityingly between Lance and the two other boys. And it takes that look, Hunk looking at him like some poor damaged thing, that tips him over the edge.

“I need some air,” Lance says, letting out a shaky breath.

“But we’re… outside?” Hunk questions.

“No, stay,” he insists when he sees Hunk getting up. “I’ll be back in a few, I just gotta…go.” He looks back over across the firepit towards Keith and find Keith’s piercing eyes already on him. Keith frowns but before he can say or do anything, Lance turns on his heels and walks away.

He goes back through the sliding doors, through the crowd of students, ignores someone calling his name, runs up three flights of stairs, and finds himself on a balcony facing the back of the house. He doesn’t know whose room he’s just trespassed but he doesn’t care. Not right now.

He grips the edge of the railing and looks towards the trees. He slips his jacket back on since it’s a little chilly up here, out in the open. He breaths in, out, in, out. He lets his head hang between his hunched shoulders and contemplates what to do.

Should he leave? Should he pretend like everything’s fine, just like always? Or should he finally stand up for himself? He’s always let the decisions fall onto the other person when it comes to his romantic relationships. He’s let himself be strung along even when he felt like the other person didn’t like him as much as he liked them. Yes, he stayed because he craved love and closeness. He let past girlfriends and past boyfriends dictate when and why and what. He stayed until they said no more. Maybe it’s time for him to make the decisions.

Lance may act dumb sometimes but he’s not an idiot. There’s no way everything that’s been going on between him and Keith has been all in his head. He should go back out there and give Keith a piece of his mind. Who does Keith think he is? Waiting for him after school, switching his routes just so he’d see Lance, letting Lance touch his face in a total _non-platonic_ way, calling him and texting him all the time. No, Lance isn’t fucking crazy. Keith’s been playing him, just like everyone else.

“Such a fucking idiot,” he hisses, head still hanging in defeat.

“Who is?”

Lance whirls around, heart halfway to beating out of his ears. He clutches at his chest and tries not to flinch.

It’s Keith, because _of course_ it’s Keith.

“What?” Lance gasps.

“Who’s the fucking idiot?” Keith asks. He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking divine and mysterious as always. Lance hates that he loves him.

“I’m still trying to decide,” Lance replies, trying to keep all emotion from his voice, “I was going to say you but I think it’s me too.”

Keith takes a step forward and Lance instinctively steps back. That turns out to be pointless, though, because he’s already leaning against the railing. There’s nowhere to go. Keith frowns and Lance looks down to see one hand is out of his pocket and is reaching out for him.

“Lance?” Fuck, he looks so sad, reaching out for Lance like that.

“No,” Lance says and shakes his head.

“What–?”

“Do you like me?” Lance blurts. Shit, he didn’t mean to say that. Or maybe he did.

“Um,” Keith falters. He looks like a deer in headlights. _Good_ , Lance thinks.

“Yes or no, Keith. Just. Just please answer the question because if this has really been all in my head the _entire_ damn time I swear to G–“

“Yes.” Keith interrupts, breathless.

“What.”

“To answer your question,” Keith swallows and takes a step closer. This time, Lance doesn’t try to step back. “Yes. I do. Um, like you, that is.”

“You like me?” Lance whispers. Maybe Lance should throw himself over the balcony to make sure he isn’t dreaming.

“I like you,” Keith confirms.

“Okay.”

“Okay…?” Keith hesitates in his steps.

“I mean. I mean _good._ Like, that’s good. That you like me.”

Now Keith looks amused. “It’s good?”

“Yeah,” Lance says swallowing. Where’s his drink? He doesn’t know where it went. His throat feels really dry right now. It becomes drier when Keith is standing right in front of him, looking up and smiling.

“And why is it good, Lance?”

Lance tries not to look away from Keith. He tries to stay strong. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Keith waits patiently.

“It’s good because then that means it wasn’t all in my head. All the, um, looks and the…flirting. And the other stuff.” He wants to hide away so badly but he doesn’t. “It means that you like me back.”

“Back?” Keith raises an eyebrow. Is he standing closer?

“Yeah, back. Because I like you too. Um, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Keith agrees, “You can’t keep your eyes off of me.”

“Shutup,” Lance retorts. He pushes at Keith’s chest but Keith doesn’t move an inch. Damn, he’s strong.

“Oh? Did you forget how this all started or..?”

“Hey! You were staring too! At least _I_ didn’t switch the way I walk to _classes_ because I wanted to see–“

Keith shuts Lance up. He kisses him and he shuts him right up.

Lance makes a muffled noise and then grabs Keith’s face between his hands and pulls back.

“Should I not have done that?” Keith asks, swallowing. He’s staring at Lance’s lips and Lance tightens his hold on his face. He needs a second. They’re both breathing hard. It was just one kiss, barely, _why are they breathing so hard?_

“No– I mean, _Yes,_ ” Lance rushes to add when he feels Keith try to move away from him. “You should kiss me _all the time_. I swear I will never complain. I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page, okay?”

“Okay,” Keith whispers. They lock eyes, drinking each other in.

“So,” Lance begins. “You like me and I like you, right?” Keith nods, jostling Lance’s hands. “I like you in a way that means I want to be your boyfriend. Do you like me in the same way? Or is this just kissing to you–“

“Lance,” Keith says as he lifts his hands and places them on top of Lance’s where they’re still holding his face. “I didn’t basically stalk you in hopes that I’d _just_ get to kiss you. I mean, if I just wanted someone to kiss, I would have kissed… I don’t know, Nick, for example.”

Oh. Right. Lance completely forgot about him.

“I saw you guys,” Lance murmurs. He tries to let his hands fall from Keith’s face but Keith holds them up, not letting Lance go and not letting Lance let go.

“Who? Me and Nick?”

“Yeah, he was like all up in your face. And touching your leg and making you laugh. I thought…” He grimaces and looks away. His face heats with embarrassment. He feels even more embarrassed when Keith starts laughing. “What’s so funny,” Lance huffs and pulls Keith face close enough that their noses mush together.

Keith goes cross-eyed. He moves back a little and looks up at Lance. They’re still _very_ close. “I’m not laughing at you, well actually, I kinda am. Ow!” He scowls when Lance uses his hands to shake Keith’s head. “Let me finish! As I was saying before you tried to take my head off, I was laughing because Nick and me? No. We weren’t flirting or anything. He’s just very touchy with his friends. His older brother is friends with Shiro so I met Nick before I even started at the Garrison. We’ve been friends, _just_ friends ever since. He did kind of show interest before but he knows it’s not like that, at least not on my side. There’s nothing going on there. There will never be anything between me and anyone who isn’t you.”

Oh. _Oh._

“ _Wow,_ that was _good._ Give me second to recover,” Lance swoons. He kisses Keith’s cheek. “Now I feel like an asshole for being so jealous.”

“Nah,” Keith says and rubs his nose back and forth against Lance’s. “It probably did look… gay. I would have been jealous too if I saw you with someone else like that.”

Lance decides to not say anything to that. They can revisit it later. “Oh, well… Since we got that out of the way, can we kiss again?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Keith rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” Lance grins and kisses him.

The kiss starts off soft. Lips moving slowly against each other, shy even. But then Lance can’t hold back anymore. He kisses Keith like he’s always wanted to, always craved. Deep and desperate. Lance tries to bring Keith closer but they’re already so close, so intertwined. Keith moves his arms to wrap them around Lance’s shoulders and Lance tilts Keith’s face up more, more, more, like he’s trying to devour him. And maybe he is, maybe this way he’ll get to keep Keith forever, if he becomes one with Lance. They part in gasps and harsh breathes. Keith whispers Lance’s name in the space between their lips and Lance swallows it every time. After what feels like an eternity, their kisses turn slow. They gently kiss each other, like they’re apologizing for the swollen lips and how harshly they’ve been gripping each other because their hands have minds of their own. Lance moves to softly kiss at Keith’s cheeks, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, before he leaves one lasting kiss on Keith’s lips. He feels free.

They finally part and Lance brings his forehead to rest on Keith’s.

“Please never stop kissing me,” Keith whispers. His eyes are still closed and he’s playing with the hair at the back of Lance’s neck.

Lance rubs his thumbs tenderly over Keith’s cheek bones. “I don’t plan on stopping, ever, Keith. I hope you know that.”

“Good,” Keith says and kisses him again.

Before they can get back into it, the door to the room opens. They’re still on the balcony so they’re hidden away but they can still clearly hear everything going on in the bedroom.

“Lotor, come _on,”_ says a voice. Lance doesn’t recognize it. 

“I’m coming,” Lotor replies with some reluctancy. “It just… it smells like someone has been in here. All I smell is terrible cologne.” Lance can just imagine the look of disgust on his face.

Lance hears Keith snickering so he pulls him closer, wrapping him up in his arms. Keith presses his face into Lance’s neck and Lance feels him breathing in.

“Nice cologne,” Keith says softly. Lance smiles and nuzzles his face into Keith’s hair.

There’s more arguing between Lotor and the unidentified voice but then they’re gone and it’s just Keith and Lance again.

Keith pulls back and looks up at Lance. He smiles goofily and Lance is three seconds away from getting on one knee. But then Keith kisses him, quick and sweet. “We should get outta here. Before Lotor comes back. Wanna go to the drive-in theater? I think they’re playing The Shining tonight.”

“Sure,” Lance agrees. He can’t help but kiss Keith once more. “Let’s go.”

They check to see if the coast is clear and then sneak out of the room hand in hand. Lance pulls Keith down the stairs and drags him back outside so he can tell Hunk he’s leaving. Thankfully, Hunk is still outside with Shay.

“Hey,” Lance says when they reach him. Hunk looks up from where he’s been showing Shay something on his phone. “I’m gonna head out with Keith. Just wanted to let you know since he’s probably taking me home so you don’t have to worry about me finding a ride.”

Hunk looks from Lance’s face to Keith’s to their joined hands. A smile appears on his face. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.” He looks back at Lance and his eyes are shining. “Have fun!”

Lance hides his own smile into in his shoulder and pulls Keith closer by the hand.

“Lance,” Keith mumbles.

“Hm?”

“The movie…”

“Oh, right!” They’ve just been standing there while Hunk looks at them with pure happiness and Shay just looks confused. “I’ll text you later,” he tells Hunk. “Bye guys.”

Keith pulls Lance away this time and he’s led back into the house. Lance says a quick goodbye to Allura but right before they can leave the party, someone calls Keith’s name.

“Keith!” Nick calls from where he’s sitting on the arm of the couch, red cup in one hand and a smile on his face. “You leaving already?”

“Oh.” Keith comes to a halt and Lance bumps right into him. He doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand. “Yeah, Lance and I are gonna go watch a movie.”

“Cool, cool,” Nick nods and take a sip of his drink. He looks at Lance for a second and then looks back to Keith. “Enjoy the movie. The Shining, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith answers, a hint of confusion in his voice.

“I think I saw it was playing. I forgot to mention it since I know you like those scary movies.” Nick’s smiling again.

“Ah, that’s too bad cause I’ll be taking my boyfriend instead.” Keith actually looks apologetic. Lance squeezes his hand. Boyfriend? _Boyfriends?_

“Right,” says Nick. “Have fun, though. Maybe we can double-date sometime.” He looks toward a girl with a blue headband in her hair and then back at Keith.

“For sure,” Keith replies. He motions to the door with his head. “We’re gonna head out. I’ll see you later.”

They say their goodbyes and leave.

Once they’re in Keith’s car, Lance finally speaks up.

“Boyfriends, huh?”

Keith freezes with the key in the ignition. “Um,” he hesitates. “Was that okay?”

“I mean, you didn’t even _ask_ me to be your boyfriend but–”

“Do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

Lance leans over to kiss Keith, one hand cupping his cheek. Keith immediately melts into the kiss.

“So is that a yes?” Keith asks between kisses.

“Duh,” Lance says and kisses him again.

They make it to the drive-in movie theater just in time. They spend quite some time bickering because Lance just wants to kiss Keith but Keith wants Lance to actually pay attention to the movie. Lance tries, he really does, and by the end, he’s kissing up Keith’s neck and Keith isn’t strong enough to push him away. This means Lance ends up missing the ending so Keith has to explain it on their way home. He doesn’t seem to mind with the way he keeps smiling at Lance.

Once they get to Lance’s house, Keith turns off the engine and turns towards him. He doesn’t say anything, just takes a moment to look at Lance. It’s thrilling, Lance thinks, how one person can make you feel so much.

“Can we talk more about you literally rearranging your life just to see me? You never finished explaining all…of that,” Lance asks. He turns in his seat, leans his elbow on the center console and props his chin in his hands.

“God,” Keith groans. He drops his head onto the steering wheel and groans some more.

Lance used his other hand to lightly play with Keith’s hair. “Hey,” he laughs. “It’s okay, no need to be embarrassed. Remember when I busted my ass in front of you?”

Lance sees Keith smiling and then Keith says, “Yeah that was pretty embarrassing. Okay,” he sighs. “So... just let me get it all out before you make fun of me—“

“I won’t make fun of you!” Lance argues. He pulls at Keith’s shoulder until Keith sits full upright again.

“You say that now...”

“Fine, fine! Just tell me.”

“Alright, so. You’re not entirely wrong. I did kind of rearrange my life just so that I’d see you more. And that _is_ how it started. I just wanted to see you. At first, that’s all it was. I wanted a glimpse of you a few time a day, no biggie.”

Lance raises his eyebrows and grins like an idiot.

Keith rolls his eyes and continues. “It was fine for a while, I wouldn’t even look more than once. I didn’t have the balls to be honest. I’d walk by the tracks to get to my car, which I never used to do, and I’d see you were out there with the team but then I wouldn’t try to make eye contact. I’d pretend like you didn’t exist. I don’t even know why, it doesn’t make sense. It’s like I wanted your attention but at the same time, I didn’t? I guess part of me didn’t want to be disappointed if you weren’t looking at all so if I just pretended I didn’t actually care then it wouldn’t matter. But then I _did_ try to get you to look. I would do things like... brush up against you in the hallway or walk past your lunch table or sit in the bleachers when it was only you on the tracks. I tried to make myself stand out without actually talking to you or anything. God, it sounds so fucking childish and weird when I say it out loud.”

“No, no,” Lance reassures. “It doesn’t, I swear. Or it does, but that’s how romance is at our age. It’s weird and that’s okay.”

“Okay,” Keith whispers. He clears his throat. “Like I was saying, at some point I told myself to stop being so afraid. What was the worst that could happen? You wouldn’t pay attention to me and then we’d graduate and I’d never see you again? That was fine, I’d get over you. Uh, no offense.”

Lance laughs and shakes his head. “None taken.”

”Right, so. When you actually started looking? When you started seeing me? It freaked me out.”

“I’ve always seen you, Keith,” Lance murmurs. “You have no idea. Since the first time I saw you, I have never been able to stop looking.”

“Lanceeee,” Keith groans. “Don’t say things like that. Not right now. Or I’ll be forced to jump you.”

“Sorry, sorry. Continue.”

Keith bites his lip before he sighs and moves forward to give Lance a quick peck.

“So. The reason I yelled at you for staring at me was because I’m an idiot basically. I put myself out there so you’d notice me and when you did, I panicked. I thought telling you to _stop_ was going to work. I thought I’d be able to push you away before anything even happened between us. Which, wow, I had high hopes but I would have never imagined it would lead us to this.”

“Me either,” Lance chimes in. “I was honestly so convinced you didn’t know I existed that even, as you say, when you would put yourself in my, um, vicinity? I think that’s the word. Whatever. Even if you were around me, I would never think it was because you wanted to be there. So whenever you’d look at me, I just assumed it was an accident or that you were looking through me or something.”

“That’s far from the truth,” Keith disagrees almost harshly.

“No, I know _now–“_

“Do you wanna know when I _saw_ you for the first time? What made me want to know you?”

Lance nods.

“Do you remember freshman year? For Halloween you had dressed up as–”

“Spiderman, yeah I remember.”

“Yeah, Spiderman. I thought it was the sweetest thing you could have done for those kids and I think I was a goner since then.”

Lance remembers it like it was yesterday. He had been on his way to the bathroom during lunch time when he came across a long line of small children, all holding hands and giggling at something. Because the Garrison had a high school and a lower school, Lance would sometimes come across the younger students. It was rare because they tried to keep the smallest of students semi-separated from the older ones but they crossed paths once in a while. Lance had just so happened to be walking down the same hallway as the kindergarteners when he heard one of them ask if Spiderman was going to come around for Halloween. Before he knew it, the entire line of five year old’s were bouncing around excitedly because _a superhero was coming to their school._ The teacher had shushed them and calmly explained that Spiderman had other things to do and unfortunately wouldn’t be able to make it. Lance couldn’t take the sad little looks on all of their faces so he waited until the end of the day to talk to the teacher and explained to them that _he_ could dress up as Spiderman and surprise the kids. One thing led to another and Lance walked into school on Halloween with a skin tight red suit on. The looks on the kids’ faces and their tiny screams of delight made the itch from the suit worth it. He didn’t knew about that.

“Yeah,” Lance says softly. “They were so happy Spiderman took time out of his busy schedule to come see them. It’s probably one of my favorite memories.”

“Mine too,” Keith admits. “I was on my way to get some art supplies when I saw Spiderman walking down the halls. I heard someone talking about how you were going to dress up as him but I didn’t believe it. Well, not until I _saw_ you. I… kind of followed you into the room and just stood there and watched you play with all those kids. You were so charming. I haven’t been able to forget about you since.”

“You’ve had a crush on me since _freshman year?_ ” Lance gasps.

“Is that weird? I told you it was weird,” Keith groans and once again thumps his head against the steering wheel. Lance will have to check his forehead later for a bruise.

Lance moves to grab him and pulls him up. “Are you kidding? No! Dude, I’ve been in love with you since the first day I _saw you_! Now that’s weird.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“We’re so dumb. We could have been together since freshman year.”

“Nah,” Lance says, shaking his head. “We would have never worked. We had to get over ourselves before we even _thought_ about being together. Fourteen year old Lance in a relationship with _you_? It would’ve ended in flames.”

Keith lets out an ugly cackle. “What? You really think so?”

Lance shrugs. “I don’t know. Who cares. We can’t change the past. The important thing is that we’re not _that_ dumb anymore and now we’re here. We’re together.” He grabs Keith’s hand and intertwines their fingers.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Keith says and softly massages Lance’s fingers with his own.

They both move at the same time and their lips meet in the middle. This kiss is full of hope and tenderness and belonging.

When they pull away, Lance reluctantly looks toward his house. “My parents are probably sitting in the living room right now waiting up for me,” he says quietly.

“Are you going to get in trouble?” Keith asks just as quietly.

“No,” Lance shakes his head. “My older brothers were terrible as teenagers and I’m…not? So they’re more lenient with me. I’m very trustworthy.” He puffs up his chest in pride.

Keith snorts. “But you are terrible.”

“And yet… you like me.”

“And yet,” Keith sighs, “I like you.”

They end up making out for a few more minutes before Lance begrudgingly has to say goodbye.

“I have to go,” Lance grumbles against Keith’s lips.

“I know.”

They kiss some more and then Lance tells him to text him. Keith promises he will. They part with another kiss and as Lance is walking towards his house, he feels his phone buzz. He grins.

Lance’s parents are in fact waiting up for him when he gets in but they just want to know he’s home and safe. He kisses them goodnight and then runs upstairs to reply to Keith’s text.

**Keith [12:23am]**

_i didn’t want you to leave but you look so good when you walk away_

**Lance [12:27am]**

_were u staring at my ass?? I barely have one_

_reply when u get home don’t text and drive babe!!_

**Keith [12:45am]**

_i just got home_

_and of course i was. it may be small but it’s nice_

_babe. :)_

**Lance [12:46am]**

_ur so cute im going to die_

_ik we just came from watching a movie but do u want to watch another one_

**Keith [12:47am]**

_yeah can i call you?_

**Lance [12:46am]**

_always_

They end up watching The Cabin in the Woods. Well, they end up _not_ watching it and instead watch each other. Lance asks about Keith’s art and they set up a time where Keith could come over to meet his family and let Lance’s Dad go crazy with Keith’s car. They don’t want to hang up so they put on another movie when their first one is done.

Lance stares unabashedly at Keith the entire hour and a half that he’s supposed to be watching the movie.

Keith never complains.

+++

Every single one of Lance’s family members seem over the moon when he tells them he’s dating Keith. His Mom pulls him off to the side at one point and embraces him. Her hug and her words are warm and full of love. They have a big dinner to celebrate. Rachel sneaks into his room later and demands more details and Lance only protests for a second he’s spilling everything. Keith tells him how excited Shiro was for them and how scared he was when he thought he spilled about Keith’s crush on Lance that one time.

When he calls Hunk later that day, Hunk waits patiently as Lance trips over his words and loses his train of thought a few times because of how _happy_ he feels. He expresses his own happiness for them tells Lance that maybe something happened last night with Shay.

They gush over their partners until they knock out.

His classmates find out some way and they don’t seem to care all that much but Lance is fine with that. As long as Keith is left alone, he’s fine with it. As Keith and Lance grow closer, Keith starts to open up even more and even starts hanging out with him when he’s with Hunk and sometimes Allura too.

Lance does recognize that he was putting Keith on a pedestal before they starting dating, or even before they became friends. He used to think Keith was this beautiful unattainable person and while he’s still beautiful, he’s clearly not unattainable. He talks in his sleep and he spells his name as _Kieth_ sometimes and he can’t eat mashed potatoes on Wednesdays. He’s just as weird as Lance. But Lance still has moments where he feels like he’s not good enough for someone like Keith. It’s something he’s trying to work on, the not thinking so badly about himself. Sometimes Keith helps comfort him and sometimes Lance can comfort himself all on his own. It’s a work in progress.

The important thing is, Lance thinks, is that he has someone by his side who would never let him go. Someone who always tries his best to let Lance know that they loves him and that they’re happy to be with him. Someone who stays up and watches movies they’ve already seen because _Lance_ wants to watch them. Someone who’s awkward around new people but spends time with Lance’s family because they care and because they see a future with Lance and would do anything to make him happy.

The important thing is that Lance has someone who makes him feel like he’s flying when they haven’t even left the ground.

+++

**Lance [12:01am]**

_happy three month anivessary_

_anniversy_

_anniversary_

_:( im dumb_

**Keith [12:05am]**

_you’re not, stop_

_happy anniversary :)_

**Lance [12:06am]**

_fine fine_

_do u still like me_

**Keith [12:07am]**

_nope_

**Lance [12:08am]**

_KEITH_

**Keith [12:08am]**

_i don’t like you_

_i love you_

_:)_

**Lance [12:09am]**

_ok u made me swoon. ur forgiven_

_i love u too <3<3<3_

**Keith [12:11am]**

_< 3_

_hey did you remind your dad shiro’s coming over for dinner on friday? shiro just texted me to confirm_

_he’s bringing adam. is that ok?_

**Lance [12:12am]**

_oh yea we were actually talking about that today it’s most likely fine_

_hunk’s coming too. with shy_

_shay*_

_and i think allura is bringing someone too, not sure who_

_sheesh that’s so many ppl. idk how we’ll fit everyone_

_get used to it kitty fangs cus you’ll be dealing w us forever_

**Keith [12:15am]**

_i told you to stop calling me that lance_

_forever, huh?_

**Lance [12:16am]**

_YUP :)_

_is that a problem_

**Keith [12:17am]**

_no. it sounds like a pretty good deal to me_

**Lance [12:18am]**

_u cant hear me but i just sighed dreamily_

_want to watch a movie? i miss ur face_

**Keith [12:20am]**

_i miss you too. i’ll call in a few_

**Lance [12:20am]**

_ill be here_

_can we try for some romantic comedy this time?_

**Keith [12:22am]**

_anything you want_

**Lance [12:23am]**

_ugh hurry up and call so i can stare at u_

Lance barely lets the phone ring before he picks up, a beaming smile on his face to match Keith's.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why this is so long...  
> I kept changing the timeline of things so just pretend it makes sense bc at this point I don't care!


End file.
